One FC CEO Touts ‘UFC of Asia,’ Debut Show to Stream on Sherdog

One Fighting Championship will stage
“Champion vs. Champion” on Sept. 3 at the 12,000-seat Singapore
Indoor Stadium in Kallang, Singapore. The event’s 10-bout card
includes multiple
UFC veterans, titleholders from some of the Asia-Pacific’s
premier fighting organizations and decorated champions from the
worlds of muay Thai, boxing, Brazilian jiu-jitsu and sanda. With a
television broadcast reach of 500 million homes and a simultaneous
live webcast on Sherdog.com, it has the potential to be the
most-watched MMA event in history.

Not bad for a first show.

Of course, it is not really Victor Cui’s maiden voyage. The founder
and CEO of One FC has nearly 15 years of experience in the sports
media industry and was also the man behind Martial
Combat, a promotion which ran two shows per month on the
Singapore resort island of Sentosa from May to October in 2010.

Like One FC, Martial Combat aired on ESPN Star Sports -- a
Singapore-based network jointly owned by the Walt Disney Company
and Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation for which Cui formerly served
as a consultant -- and featured a host of international talent.
However, as Cui explains, that was merely a dress rehearsal.

“Martial Combat was a small test pilot project held in a hotel
ballroom without a real capital base. It’s comparing apples and
oranges,” Cui tells Sherdog.com. “Just for comparison, I’m spending
15 times more per event with One Fighting Championship than I ever
did for Martial Combat. In fact, my budget for the inaugural show
is greater than that of all 12 shows of Martial Combat
combined.”

The difference in capital, which comes from Cui himself and “a
group of foreign investors with deep pockets,” is readily apparent
in the lineup for One FC’s Sept. 3 offering. Whereas the most
recognizable name to feature in Martial Combat’s run was Japanese
veteran Shungo Oyama,
the co-main event of “Champion vs. Champion” will be a clash of
popular ex-UFC welterweights Phil Baroni
and Yoshiyuki
Yoshida. The show’s headliner features one of the region’s most
touted prospects, Filipino lightweight Eduard
Folayang, taking on muay Thai stylist Ole
Laursen.

“For lack of a better analogy, One Fighting Championship is the UFC
of Asia, but with a focus on the best Asian fighters,” says Cui. “I
have a simple philosophy: I just want the best Asian fighters in
Asia on our show. I don’t care if it’s a guy or a girl. If you’re a
world champion martial artist and you want to let it all hang in
the cage, then I want you. If you are the baddest fighter in your
country in Asia, then I want you. If you think you’re the best MMA
fighter, then I want you. One Fighting Championship is about the
best Asian fighters competing on the biggest Asian stage.”

Unlike many Asian organizations, which follow the ringed lead of
Pride Fighting Championships, One FC will be one of the
region’s few high-profile promotions to take place in a cage.
Unlike the UFC, however, the company will not utilize the Unified
Rules of Mixed Martial Arts.

“The rules are taking the best of Pride FC and the best of UFC,”
Cui explains. “For me, I just want to put on exciting fights with
the best Asian fighters that MMA fans want to see. I want KOs and
submissions. I want real action. I want to see the purity of MMA,
with stomps and soccer kicks and elbows.”

While One FC will kick off in its headquarters of Kallang,
Singapore, do not expect the company to stay put; Cui is already
planning events for Japan, South Korea, Indonesia, Malaysia and
beyond.

“In the next 12 months, One Fighting Championship will be in
Singapore, Macau, Jakarta, Seoul, Kuala Lumpur and Tokyo,” Cui
says, adding that shows in Thailand and the Philippines are also on
the radar. “The UFC has been very successful doing shows in all the
major cities in North America and some in Europe. I’m not a rocket
scientist, but I’m just going to follow that roadmap, except
applying it to Asian cities only.”

Cui’s vision may seem grandiose, but it is also not unrealistic.
One FC reportedly remains in negotiations with some of the most
prominent fighters in the dissipating Japanese scene and has close
ties with Singapore’s fast-rising
Evolve MMA team. Additional television deals could place the
promotion in upwards of one billion homes throughout Asia by the
end of 2011. At the same time, unlike many startups, One FC is in
no rush to crown champions, as Cui notes that “all the fighters on
this first event have a gazillion title belts already.”

“The landscape in Asia is basically One Fighting Championship and
Dream as the two real major players with the best fighters,” Cui
says. “[One Fighting Championship] is a world-class event held in
one of the largest stadiums in Asia, with world-class event and
television production and the best roster of Asian world champions
and fighters outside of Japan -- for now.”